Equipping a Wizard Lord

I just picked up the Empire book today, going to go with a well-balanced, infantry and magic heavy list, lead (at least in larger battles) by a Wizard Lord, and I want advice on what to give him.

Right now I am really liking the Lore of Heaven for him, as it means I can sit him in the back and not worry about range, only LoS and rain death upon my opponents. So I am wondering how I should equip him. Here are some of my ideas -

1) I am liking "Orb of Thunder" because it goes with the Lore of Heavens Theme, and I won't use any flyers, it will limit my opponent's mobility. And give him another spell to worry about dispeling.

2) I was thinking about the Grey Wand, to help boost his general casting ability and allowing me to stretch my Power Dice out a little more.

3) the upgrade to level 4. Just for a better chance of getting the spells I want and the boosted casting.

4) Some kind of Ward Save. Will I need it?

5) A bodyguard. Maybe something cheap to soak up enemy shooting. Maybe Swordsmen, or spears or halberds with shields to soak up ranged attacks and help defend him in close-combat. Maybe handgunners.

6) am I missing anything? I'm new to this game.

Not too concerned about loading this guy up. He's going to be a center piece around which the whole army is based.

The rest of the army - probably a captain leading a good sized unit of Knights, 2 lvl 1 battle wizards w/ dispel scrolls leading 2 units of handgunners, a few pieces of artillery and the rest of 2,250 points on massed infantry of all kinds (that includes greatswords and ranged units).

I am in the process of putting a preliminary list together for the Lists section.

I just ran a Lvl4 Wizard Lord today with the Lore of Fire, the Grey Wand and 3 Power Stones.

The Grey Wand enabled me to barely get a spell off:party2:, and he incinerated a load of Gobbos until a Miscast Turn 6 fizzled his remaining Power Dice.

It could just be me, but imo the Orb of Thunder is useless. It costs too many points and if I were the opponent, I'd just let it slide, so I really don't see what it would accomplish.

The Grey Wand is great. Absolutely beautiful. If you're going defensive magic, don't bother but as an attack weapon...

Lvl4 Upgrade is the same as above, offensive yes, defensive no. Extra dice, plus the probability of getting a favourite spell off.

A ++ Save isn't necessary, especially if you have him in a unit. In the said game, he had an entourage of 10 Swordsmen and almost ran off the board because of a lucky Doom Diver and a bummed Panic test, and I only passed because of a Musician.

My own collection features several characters, so I can pull out whoever I feel like at the time. For example, today I ran a Lvl4 Wizard, 2 Lvl2s, and a Warrior Priest, whereas in other circumstances, I'd go for fore melee-based options.

Can you take 3 powerstones? The rules state only one arcane item per character, except for scrolls.

You can as many power stones as you can afford. It's covered in the Power Stone rules on page 122 of the Rulebook. It basically says that for purposes of how many you can take they follow the same rules as scrolls.

I can't help much on the equipment front though. I have no idea what the Empire magic items do!

Thou shalt remember: Warhammer Fantasy armies do NOT have Codices. They have Army Books.

I've thought about running a wizard lord (just because I think the archlector is silly)

I would do something like this barded horse, armor of tarnus (decent save) van horstman's speculum and rod of power.

I would back him up with captain on pegasus with doomfire ring, level 2 wizard with ring of volans and dispel scroll/power stone and a warpriest.

As far as lores go, the last thing you want to do is pick a lore before you know who you're playing. Heavens stinks for the most part, although being able to reroll stuff is nice. Most of the spells got nerfed in the new edition (justifiably)